Black + Proud: 12 LGBTQ+ Creators To Know
Black Pride is its own thing. It always has been. Long before rainbow flags flew over corporate storefronts or Pride got a month, Black queer people were building community, culture, language, and legacies in spaces the mainstream either ignored or actively tried to erase. The Harlem Renaissance was queer. Ball culture was queer. The Combahee River Collective was queer. Black Pride didn't start with a hashtag. It started with people refusing to disappear.
So yes, although Pride is a celebration, for Black people in the LGBTQ+ community, it is also a correction. That correction starts with history. Stonewall in June 1969 is the flashpoint most people know, but the uprising was powered in part by Black and brown queer people, including Marsha P. Johnson, whose activism after Stonewall helped make the movement public. The result was not just a protest, but a template for Pride as political resistance.
The rights fight kept moving after that, through organizing, visibility, and legal wins that still shape life today. The first national LGBTQ rights organizations formed in the post-Stonewall era, and in 2020, the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling held that firing someone for being gay or transgender violates Title VII. Those milestones matter because they make the work visible now: Black queer creators are not just showing up online, they are building on a history of people who refused to disappear.
Here are a few of those LGBTQ+ community members to know:
Big Freedia
The Queen Diva remains one of bounce music’s most influential figures and a visible LGBTQ+ force in New Orleans culture.
Janelle Monáe
Non-binary and pansexual singer, songwriter, rapper, and actor who keeps making their own lane.
Kevin Aviance
Drag queen, musician, and nightlife legend who remains a beloved figure firmly inside Black and queer ballroom history.
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Nick Guillory
A Black gay travel creator and entrepreneur whose content centers solo travel, LGBTQ+ visibility, and life abroad.
Yar Sudani
A Midwest-based content creator behind Sudani Diaries whose work blends beauty, TV and film, fashion, natural hair, travel, and cosplay with a focus on joy, softness, and radical self-love.
Jari Jones
An actress, model, activist, and designer whose work keeps Black trans visibility present in fashion, screen work, and culture.
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Anania
A genderqueer Black creator whose viral queer quiz show “Gaydar” makes LGBTQ+ education feel fun, smart, and fully viral.
Destin Conrad
A Queer R&B artist carving out a lane called the Black queer music renaissance.
Kai-Isaiah Jamal
Poet, model, and visibility activist whose work centers on body, identity, and queer self-definition.
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Joy Oladokun
A queer Black singer-songwriter whose honest, genre-blending songwriting has made her one of the most distinctive voices in Americana and country-adjacent music.
TwoGrlsOneWorld
A wife duo and travel brand built around adventure, global exploration, and queer joy, with a platform that turns seeing the world together into the story.
Mike Gauyo
A Haitian-American TV writer, founder of Black Boy Writes Media, and creator of the Black Boy Writes/Black Girl Writes mentorship initiative, using his platform to open doors for more Black and marginalized writers in Hollywood.
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